Amusement park murder trial on court tv now.

There is a murder trial involving a death on a ride where a woman fell off a ride right now on court tv. *** Edited 5/16/2005 3:22:20 PM UTC by crazy horse***

Its from the death at rockin raceway park in tenn.

The problem was that someone put some type of jumper cable in the rides computer terminal to bring power to a dead wire. The defendant says that it came from zamperla(sp) that way and that it was mentnd in the ride manual that it was a fix to a defect. Stan Martin is the parks mechanic and is charged with murder. *** Edited 5/16/2005 2:59:40 PM UTC by crazy horse***

Does anyone know if she was killed by the fall, or by getting struck by the ride?

Killed by the fall - these types of rides(Hawk 24 & 48) go as high as 90ft. in the air. This particular ride was a stand-alone/portable model I believe, not that it has anything to do with this case.

http://coasterbuzz.com/forum.aspx?mode=thread&TopicID=37126

I think they are being too harsh by saying that Stan murderd that woman. I believe that he had no hand in this. Even if he did put the jumper wire in (in which I don't think he did), I am sure he did not intend to harm or kill anyone.

I feel really bad for the family of the woman, but I think they are going after the wrong person and for the wrong reasons.

They also mentiond that the day before the accident, that Stan had his own family ride the "hawk".

From what I have watched so far, it seems that Stan would call Zamperla up everytime something happened on the ride. The platform not working properly, the lights burning out, etc. But once the warrantee ran out on the attraction, he quit calling for technical assistance.

I also feel that it is wrong of the defense to blaim this on Zamperla. I'm not going to go into details but Zamperla handels things alot more professionaly than the way they are decribing it.

I saw Nancy Grace include this story on promos for her show. I'm interested in how the trial plays out, but that woman just grates on me so much that I decided to pass.

Unless zamperla was the one that jumped the wire. They did mention that the ride would not even run without the wire being jumped.

Looks like the jury found him guilty of reckless homicide.

http://itemonline.com/articles/2005/05/16/ap/headlines/d8a4lqmo0.txt

^The link's dead, here's an alternative...

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z32F2161B

-Jimvy!

*** Edited 5/17/2005 8:22:57 AM UTC by invy***

"Zamperla employees helped set it up, then returned to make repairs on its folding platform and tower motor. Three former Rockin' Raceway employees testified, however, that The Hawk ran and stopped as designed from 1998 through 2000. Zamperla made no more site visits after that."

That *should* alleviate Zamperla of responsibility in the upcoming civil suit...but ya never know.

The jury took a pass on the second-degree murder charges.

Poor guy, he spent his whole life trying to keep people safe. And now he is going to serve jail time for something he did not do.

What do you mean something he didn't do? There were wires jumpering OVER safety circuits. The guy owned the ride, therefore was responsible for making sure it operated safely.

Even if he didn't know anything was done to the ride (not likely), his non-involvement was negligent.

He did not own the ride, he just worked there. And how can he be negligent if it came from zamperla that way?

It didn't come from Zamperla that way.

The ride would not of ever run if the wire was not jumped.

They mentiond that it was a manufacturing defect(the wire). It would not carry a electric current. So if the ride would not have ever ran without the jumper, it leads me to believe that it came from zamperla that way. The ride did not come right from the factory, it was active in 2 trade shows in florida prior to being sold to rockin raceway.

The only thing I could see him being guilty of is not noticing the jumped wire, but that does not warrent him being found guilty of reckless homicide.

Also, if it was an obvius thing to spot why did the state inspector miss it also? I assume the ride had to be inspected every year by the state.

I know people that have worked on similar rides. They've assured me that there is no way that you can bypass the safety interlocks unless you deliberately do so. It doesn't just "happen" otherwise.

There is no doubt it was bypassed, but I think it was bypassed prior to rockin raceway.

I think what they were referring to is that the ride would not run at all without the jumper if the harnesses were not all down and fully locked in place.

The jumper bypassed the safety check built into the harness system. See this quote from the CNN Article

---

Prosecutors argued that the safety system on The Hawk, which swings higher and higher before turning 360 degrees, had been tampered with, causing the ride to take off even though Alexander's safety harness was not secured.

Jumper cables were found in the system's electrical panel which expert witnesses testified had bypassed the backup safety mechanisms.

---

And Crazy Horse, if you think Rockin Raceway didn't do the bypass, obviously you think it was Zamperla. If that is the case, why were no other Zamperla Hawks found by the defense that had the same jumper?

*** Edited 5/18/2005 9:55:27 AM UTC by redman822***